


Homeward

by lori (zakhad), zakhad



Series: Captain and Counselor, the revised versions [31]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:54:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23146525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/lori, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/zakhad
Summary: Barin and Alexander understand each other.
Series: Captain and Counselor, the revised versions [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1222406
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Homeward

Barin walked with a hand on Murphy's shoulder in the park in Medara, ignoring the looks. He knew people were staring and talking. It was true, there were plenty of other species on Betazed. Tavnians were rare, but present. He looked Tavnian, except for his dark Betazoid eyes. Maybe a lot of people hadn't ever seen a Tavnian before. But he was sure, because he'd heard the comments, muttered low in his wake, that it wasn't always the case. _That's the half blood_ _Troi_.

His mother had educated him about the Fifth House, and also told him that sometimes there were people who had ideas about others who were somehow different from them. Deanna had explained racism in more detail, because she didn't continue under the assumption that because he was very young, he was like Betazoid children who were the same age. He retained the memories passed down to him genetically from his father, so he understood why his peers couldn't understand. He knew he wasn't like them at all. Mother did tend to treat even Deanna with some amount of 

Murphy grumbled irritably and glared at a man who came a little too close. The man changed directions and moved away across the grass.

"Be nice," Barin said.

"Or not," Alexander said from behind them.

Barin looked over his shoulder at the Klingon. "He wasn't going to hurt me."

Alexander grinned -- he looked feral when he did that, but Barin knew he wasn't violent by nature. "You think he wasn't going to, but you don't know." Since Alexander was now his security guard, that was his official assumption -- dangerous until proven otherwise.

Barin reached the playground and stood on the edge of the walk looking at the four kids playing on the bars. Murphy waited, panting -- it was sunny and his black coat absorbed heat -- and looking back and forth at children swinging on bars and climbing to the top of a slide. There was a water fountain at the corner of the playground to their right, so Barin headed over to it. When he pressed the toggle, water spouted up -- Murphy extended his head and lapped at it then dunked his head forward into the stream.

"Maybe we should take him home," Barin suggested.

Alexander patted the _nemoya'_ s shoulder. "He feels a bit warm. Probably we've been out walking too long. The books said their natural habitat is jungle, maybe it's too hot for him."

"Let's go." Barin set off across the grass again, toward the street. The smaller of Mother's two vehicles waited in a parking area on the other side of it.

Three small children ran up to them before they made it to the edge of the grass. One of them said, "Is that a _nemoya_?" Two of them had the black-on-black eyes, and the third had light brown eyes. He knew that didn't mean the child wasn't Betazoid. There were now children with a human grandparent, mostly Betazoid with just enough of the human genome to be slightly different.

"He is -- his name is Murphy," Barin said with a smile.

"Can we pet him?" the other girl said, gazing at Murphy's massive bulk and flinching when he flicked one of his long, pointed ears forward at her.

"Sure."

At the touch of a small hand on his nose, Murphy swiveled his ears flat against his head then lowered his muzzle and licked her hand with his broad, abrasive black tongue. The girl laughed merrily and jerked her hand away. Then the other two girls darted forward, and Barin watched all three of them petting the purring cat.

"Shera! Niya! Come," a woman called out. Two of the girls looked, and then cast an apologetic look at Barin before running away. The third girl ran a hand down Murphy's nose then followed them. The woman, Barin noticed, hurried the three children in the other direction.

"Murphy's been a lot calmer lately. He was really good with them," Alexander commented.

"I'm glad Mother let me keep him." Barin glanced off to their left at the swings; there were several people watching them. He tried not to care. It was difficult when the watchers seemed to be frowning.

Once they were in the vehicle, Alexander waited for the top to swing shut and for Murphy to stop making the car bounce. When the cat was settled in the back, they moved off toward home. Barin sat in the front with Alexander and watched out the side window as they passed through town and went up the long road toward home.

"Are you missing going to school?" Alexander asked. Mother had hired a teacher to come to the house, rather than continue sending him to school in Medara. Security was a concern now that she was on the Federation Council.

"Not so much." He knew that some of the children were his friends; he still saw them often, since Mother was more than happy to play hostess to them and their parents. Others he was not missing at all. He enjoyed his time with Alexander more, anyway. It was easier to talk to him.

"Mrs. Troi said you might be able to see your father soon. Are you looking forward to that?"

Barin thought about Tavny, the generations he remembered, and the progression he'd made from knowing very little to now. The older he was, the more he remembered. And the less motivated he was to go. Tavnians were more rigidly strict about most things than Betazoids. "Maybe not."

Alexander turned his head to look at him. Barin had at first been intimidated by his Klingon friend -- he looked like all the images he'd seen of Klingons, with the ridged forehead and shaggy hair. But Alexander was quick to smile, laughed often, and didn't seem at all like the Klingons Barin had learned about. He had straight, even teeth. His mother had been half human, he'd said. Something else they had in common. Both had lost a parent, and both were hybrids.

It was hard to explain to Mother what it meant to be different. Mother loved him wholeheartedly. He didn't doubt she would defend him if she ever caught anyone treating him any disrespectfully. But there were Betazoids who looked at him with expressions that suggested they were not so inclined to accept him. Most of the time, he was treated well on Betazed. Children especially were not at all perturbed by his appearance.

He thought Mother must be aware of differing opinions about hybrids, and him in particular. He'd noticed that she kept him away from Betazoids who were members of the other Houses. Deanna had talked about her own childhood quite a lot, when she was home to visit with her husband. Her stories made him wonder -- but Mother kept saying that the war had changed everything.

It must have changed her....

"Barin, is everything okay?" Alexander asked.

"I don't know. Deanna said she knows what it's like, being a hybrid. But it sounds like things were different when she was young. The only people who rejected her were in the Houses. It's different now. Sometimes I get strange reactions from people."

"At least you aren't half Klingon," Alexander said. "They call Klingons with mixed parentage 'mongrels' in the Empire."

That was news. Though he'd talked about his experiences serving on a Klingon vessel, Alexander hadn't mentioned that. Barin finally dared to ask a question he hadn't yet. "Did you stay with us because you didn't feel at home on Quo'nos?"

Alexander looked forward, at the road they were moving up -- they'd made it to the bottom of the long hill, at the top of which sat the Troi home. "I told you about the _Enterprise_ and growing up there until my father transferred. I was old enough at that point that I had an opinion -- I had a tough time fitting in with the kids in the school on the ship. It took time to adjust and just when I was feeling at home, the ship was destroyed. Father wanted to spent time on the homeworld and I went with him. I thought we were going to live there, but then he wanted to go back to Starfleet. I decided to stay. We argued, and then I didn't speak to him again until he came aboard the _Rotarran_."

"What's he like?"

"My father grew up in the care of humans and always wanted to be Klingon. And my mother didn't care about Klingon culture nearly as much -- until she died, I was only somewhat Klingon. She lived with Klingons on Qo'nos and rebelled when she wanted to, didn't care what anyone said about her. Mrs. Troi reminds me of her a lot."

"I guess Mother doesn't match a lot of people's expectations," Barin said with a smile.

"Deanna was so helpful to me when I lived on board with her," Alexander said. "Mother, Mrs. Troi and Deanna were about being themselves, and getting along with other people. Father was all about living up to his own expectations and he wanted me to be Klingon too. And the Klingons value honor and victory, over relationships. But all I wanted was a home. People who loved me. I didn't like weapons and killing. My grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Rozhenko, did their best, but when I was with them I was convinced Father didn't want anything to do with me and I was so angry that I didn't want to do anything with them. When I came back from living with them I hated Father -- I spent a lot of time refusing to do anything he wanted me to, and missing my mother."

Barin thought about what it was like, before he was able to access the Tavnian memories with which he'd been gifted. Deanna had also explained that most children without that gift had to learn slowly, and that maybe there were some things he could also learn by experience -- all the emotional growth that comes from experience and made an individual unique, for example. He had come to recognize that she was right. So he wanted to understand this better. This wasn't the first time Alexander had spoken about his father, but it was the first time he'd gone into this much detail.

"You didn't understand why he sent you away?"

Alexander inhaled sharply -- his nostrils flared for a second as he did so, and his lips thinned. That was a reaction Barin recognized from others, including Captain Picard, who had a subtler version of it. It meant restraint and carefully considering a response.

"I know Father loved me," he said at last. "And I know that the difficulties we had were not because I have human blood. That wasn't a problem until I went to Qo'nos. I think that my inability to behave like a Klingon on the homeworld frustrated him. And I don't think he could figure out how to blend in either, he was raised by humans. I know, because he told me, that there were times as a Starfleet officer that he found it difficult to reconcile the Klingon philosophy with duty."

"Tavnians are only recently Federation members," Barin said. The vehicle was pulling into the driveway, and in the back Murphy grumbled in anticipation. He seemed to know the routine well now. They went to the park several times a week. "I don't have memories of multicultural difficulties. I do remember that there are sometimes conflicts between political factions on Tavny, but they don't result in people disdaining each other because of their disagreement. It's generally been looked upon as beneficial, a way to explore possible solutions to problems we face."

"That doesn't sound like the same thing at all," Alexander said. And Tavnians weren't Betazoids. Alexander was right.

"When we were in the park, the woman wanted the kids to leave with her. And I don't know that it's because I'm alien, or because I'm Barin Troi. I'm not sure if it's because Mother is part of a House and they're unpopular, or because there are more people now who are wanting Betazed to leave the Federation and they look at Mother as an impediment."

"You've heard some of the comments, then." Alexander shut down the vehicle, and pressed the door control. Before the door finished opening Murphy leaped out and stretched, yowling to himself.

"I guess you have too."

They got out -- Alexander leaned in again to set the vehicle so the doors would close and it would move into the garage. While it did so, he turned toward the house with Barin. Murphy tried to get them to play, romping and bouncing alongside, but Barin went to the front door. As he followed them inside, the cat calmed down and walked behind them.

Mother came down the hall from her office to meet them. "Hello, my dears. Did you enjoy your park visit?"

"Yes, Mother. Is it time for lunch?"

"It is! Go clean up and I'll see you in the arboretum." Mother leaned down to kiss his forehead and was off in a rustle of the heavy fabric of her skirts.

Alexander went as far as the door to his bedroom. "Are you going to tell her about the comments?"

Barin looked up at his friend -- way up, as his forehead barely reached Alexander's big belt buckle. "If we tell her, she won't let us go to the park any more."

"Maybe we shouldn't go."

"If we tell her it'll just add to her stress." They both knew she was struggling lately. Alexander had already commented on how he remembered her being much happier, the last time he'd seen her, aboard the _Enterprise_. "It's just a comment every now and then."

Alexander's seriousness made him worry. But he said, "It's just a comment _now_. How about this -- we'll go to the park once a week, and spend more time taking walks around this property, or go to the Fifth House once in a while. And we won't tell her unless something else happens."

Barin shrugged. "Okay." He turned and went in his room to change his shirt. Murphy followed him, purring and dropping to his belly on the floor to wait.

He decided to send a message to Deanna, ask for advice -- she would understand his feelings at least, maybe even have suggestions for him. She'd helped him understand Mother better, after all.

"How would you like to talk to Deanna?" he asked Murphy as he pulled off his shirt.

Murphy's ears came up and he opened his mouth in a yawning "RrrrROW."

"We'll try tomorrow."

His round yellow eyes blinked. Putting his head down on his paws, he purred, gazing up at Barin adoringly.

Barin turned to open his closet and select another shirt. He hoped Deanna wasn't too busy to talk via subspace.


End file.
